Verena Keitel, Martin Burdelski, Ulrich Warskulat, Thomas Kühlkamp, Dietrich Keppler, Dieter Häussinger, Ralf Kubitz – 19 April 2005 – Mutations of the bile salt export pump (BSEP) or the multidrug resistance P‐glycoprotein 3 (MDR3) are linked to impaired bile salt homeostasis and lead to progressive familial intrahepatic cholestasis (PFIC)‐2 and ‐3, respectively. The regulation of bile salt transporters in PFIC is not known.

19 April 2005

Andrea Galli, Gianluca Svegliati‐Baroni, Elisabetta Ceni, Stefano Milani, Francesco Ridolfi, Renata Salzano, Mirko Tarocchi, Cecilia Grappone, Giulia Pellegrini, Antonio Benedetti, Calogero Surrenti, Alessandro Casini – 19 April 2005 – Experimental evidence indicates that reactive oxygen species (ROS) are involved in the development of hepatic fibrosis; they induce hepatic stellate cells (HSC) proliferation and collagen synthesis.

Adrian Reuben – 19 April 2005

Thomas Berg, Florian van Bömmel – 19 April 2005

Boris Görg, Matthias Wettstein, Sabine Metzger, Freimut Schliess, Dieter Häussinger – 19 April 2005 – Glutamine synthetase (GS) in the liver is restricted to a small perivenous hepatocyte population and plays an important role in the scavenging of ammonia that has escaped the periportal urea‐synthesizing compartment. We examined the effect of a single intraperitoneal injection of lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in vivo on glutamine synthesis in rat liver.

David S. K. Lu, Nam C. Yu, Steven S. Raman, Charles Lassman, Myron J. Tong, Carolyn Britten, Francisco Durazo, Sammy Saab, Steven Han, Richard Finn, Jonathan R. Hiatt, Ronald W. Busuttil – 19 April 2005 – Orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) can be a definitive treatment for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). Prolonged waiting times for cadaveric livers, however, may lead to dropout from the waiting list or worsened post‐OLT prognosis as a result of interval tumor progression.

Markus Moser, Sonja Matthiesen, Jutta Kirfel, Hubert Schorle, Carsten Bergmann, Jan Senderek, Sabine Rudnik‐Schöneborn, Klaus Zerres, Reinhard Buettner – 19 April 2005 – Autosomal recessive polycystic kidney disease (ARPKD) is an important cause of liver‐ and renal‐related morbidity and mortality in childhood. Recently, PKHD1, the gene encoding the transmembrane protein polyductin, was shown to be mutated in ARPKD patients. We here describe the first mouse strain, generated by targeted mutation of Pkhd1.

Edmund J. Bini, John McGready – 19 April 2005 – Although cirrhosis is a known risk factor for gallstones, little is known about gallbladder disease (GBD) in individuals with hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. We determined the association between chronic HCV infection and GBD in a representative sample of adults in the United States. Data on HCV infection and GBD were available for 13,465 persons 20 to 74 years of age who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

Despina Katsika, Andrej Grjibovski, Curt Einarsson, Frank Lammert, Paul Lichtenstein, Hanns‐Ulrich Marschall – 19 April 2005 – The contribution of hereditary and environmental factors to the pathogenesis of symptomatic gallstone disease is still unclear. We estimated the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors by analyzing a large population of twins.